A slower pace of recovery

China reporter Lucy Gao reviews the major business news making headlines every day in both the Chinese and English language press.

China Securities Journal

■ China issued 3.5 billion bank credit and debit cards by the end of 2012, the latest official data shows.

■ Mutual funds reduced their stock holdings to 80 per cent of their total by the end of last week, down from 83.3 per cent a week earlier, due to the weak domestic sharemarket.

■ The government plans to conduct a nationwide soil pollution survey in order to find both the natural condition of the soil and the impact that human activity has had on it, the Ministry of Land and Resources said on Wednesday.

■ The China Securities Regulatory Commission has approved the launch of the first batch of two gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) products and their feeder funds in China’s fund market.

■ China plans to auction 23 billion yuan in bonds to investors in Hong Kong this year, the Ministry of Finance said.

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Company Profile

■ Sales of China-made automobiles rose at a slower pace in May amid sluggish economic growth in the world’s largest motor vehicle market, an industrial group announced on Sunday.

Shanghai Securities News

■ A slew of weak data for May issued earlier this month indicates China’s economic recovery is much slower than the market had previously expected, analysts said.

■ China’s fiscal revenue continued a trend of slow growth in May due to tempered economic expansion and the country’s tax-cutting policies, according to official data.

China Daily

■ A series of economic data released over the weekend have exacerbated concerns over the Chinese economy but authorities may refrain from cutting interest rates or banks’ reserve requirement ratio unless labour market conditions deteriorate.

■ Chinese solar panel makers will supply most of the $US140 million needed to build a solar power station in Garissa, Kenya, according to state-owned China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic and Technical Cooperation, the deal’s co-ordinator.

■ A delegation led by honorary Kuomintang chairman Wu Po-hsiung arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for a three-day visit, a development that mainland authorities called “an important activity" among the high-level exchanges between the mainland and Taiwan.

■ US whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the US National Security Agency had been hacking computers in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland since 2009.

People’s Daily

■ Dagong Global Credit Rating Co, China’s top rating agency, will kick off its European business on Thursday to become the first Chinese rating firm to register and operate in Europe.